New Bundesliga season, new players, new kits and a fresh start. The Bundesliga starts today and all the fans around the world have been waiting for the opening game of FC Bayern Munich and Hamburg SV. A tie between the Bundesliga season 2014-15 champions and the team who qualified due to the Relegation play-offs is definitely a game not to be missed.
Before looking deeper into what’s coming, it would be helpful to reminisce on the previous 2014-2015 season. Last season was an eventful one to say the least. Borussia Dortmund facing relegation was something that shocked the football world. But in the end, SC Freiburg and SC Paderborn 07 got relegated, and on the other hand, Ingolstadt 04 and Darmstadt 98 got promoted for this season.
Budesliga 2015/16 Preview
FC Schalke 04 didn’t have the best season either but have signed what seems to be great talent in Franco Di Santo, Johannes Geis and Junior Caicara. Schalke will be back competing at the top this season it seems along with Bayern Munich, Bayern 04 Leverkusen (who signed Chilean Charles Aranguiz) and Borussia Monchengladbach.
VfL Wolfsburg, last season’s runner-ups were also a force to be reckonned with. Wolfsburg’s manager Dieter Hecking impressed everyone and so did Bas Dost and Kevin De Bruyne.
Dortmund are also back on track. Hoping to forget all about the horrible 2015-2016 season, the black and yellow team is back and is back strong. They haven’t lost any of the important games after the summer break and all of their top players have remained faithful including Ilkay Gundogan, Marco Reus, Mats Hummels, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Thomas Thuchel, Dortmund’s new manager has got a lot of ideas to improve his team and plans to play beautiful and fast football and he has shown already he will be bringing Dortmund back to the top. He confirmed today that the first choice goalkeeper will be Roman Burki. Their test will be tomorrow in a hard and testing game against Borussia Monchengladbach.
Bayern Munich have seemingly always been near the top and as 2014-2015 Champions, they aren’t taking anything lightly. The 25-times champions have made huge bids this summer and have been rewarded by signing Joshua Kimmich from VfB Stuttgart, goalkeeper Sven Ulriech, Brazilian Douglas Costa and former Juventus star Arturo Vidal. Fans are exited to see the new and improved team in the Bundesliga and how they will perform. Costa is promised to be one of the best wingers in the world according to Pep Guardiola, Bayern’s manager. Everytime he steps on the field, he creates chances, he has already netted a penalty goal and given two assists. Costa has impressed teammates and Bayern’s fans with his speed, dribbling, agility and chance creating talents.
Arturo Vidal, whose first game with the Bavarians was in the DFL Supercup against VfL Wolfsburg, when he came in the 73rd minute has also turned heads. The Chilean is very ambitious and wants to score a lot and he did in the DFB Cup 1st round. He gives Guardiola a lot of options because he can be placed in many positions on the field and that makes him reliable and useful. When he started on August 9, he proved he was worth the praise he has been given.
Guardiola’s team is still missing Frank Ribery, Holger Badstuber, Javi Martinez and Jan Kirchhoff but his options are many. He has an 18-man squad and he will have to chose who will be starting. Today’s starting game is extremely important as Bayern want to obviously start the season with a win. The fans expect nothing less.
Predictions of Bayern’s 11-man squad for today’s Bundesliga opening game against Hamburg: Manuel Neuer – Philipp Lahm(C), Medhi Benatia, Jerome Boateng, David Alaba – Xabi Alonso, Thiago Alcantara – Arjen Robben, Thomas Muller, Douglas Costa – Robert Lewandowski (4-2-3-1)
Other Predictions of Matchday 1:
FCB 4-0 HSV
S04 2-1 BRE
FCA 3-0 BSC
B04 3-1 TSG
D98 2-2 H96
M05 2-1 FCl
BVB 3-2 BMG
WOB 3-0 SGE
VFB 1-1 KOE
